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In December 2003, Abbott Laboratories (NYSE: ABT) decided to increase the price of its HIV/AIDS drug Norvir (ritonavir) by 400%!

PAL member Service Employees International Union Health & Welfare Fund filed a class action lawsuit against Abbott in October 2004, alleging that the price increase violated the antitrust laws. Abbott faced a firestorm of criticism for this outrageous price increase — there were shareholder resolutions, protests at Abbott headquarters, a boycott by hundreds of physicians, Attorney General investigations, numerous newspaper editorials lambasting the move, etc. But Abbott refused to even consider reducing the price...

The lawsuit has overcome significant hurdles, and the trial is scheduled to begin this summer.Both Abbott and the plaintiffs have filed numerous documents with their Summary Judgment motions, and now Abbott is asking the Court to “seal” many of those documents, i.e. make them not available to the public. Why does Abbott want to keep these documents a secret and out of public view?

Visit the PAL Blog to see their reasoning and decide for yourself if they shoudl be public:

Are you some sorta troll? I hope not. There are other folk around here who are gonna just burn you alive for this but I'm too busy to give a a shit so I'm just gonna report you to our Old Testament Goderators (not that they'll thank a body) and move on to the next thread.

When the 400% increase was making the news a few years ago, I was in the depths of PCP and recovery was slow and painful. The news of Abbott and their greed caused great depression to come tumbling down on me and I've never fully recovered.

I thought the matter had been rather unpleasantly and incontestably resolved so I'm more than pleased to read about this.

Yeah. I gotta say it crosses my mind to this day each time I went to the ol' ADAP window for my scrip of Kaletra. I was told it was not only a cynical attempt to push people into Kaletra but in response to Norvir's newer role as a booster drug n general.

1/4 use of drug x 400% increase = same $ generated and / or they all just run to Kaletra and we get all the profits anyway.

I have to agree..."what good will with the HIV community?" I understand the fundamental need for a profit margin, but if there was ever a time when it became all too clear what the real score was on the pharma front, that was it for me.